Ulrich Ochsenbein

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Ulrich Ochsenbein, the President of the Diet in his officer's uniform, 1847

Ulrich Ochsenbein (* probably November 11, 1811 , baptized November 24, 1811 in Schwarzenegg (municipality of Unterlangenegg ), †  November 3, 1890 in Port , entitled to live in Fahrni ) was a Swiss politician and officer . He was leader of the 1845 second Freischarenzugs , then Councilor of the Canton of Bern . In 1848 he was first elected to the National Council and then to the Federal Council. Ochsenbein fell out with his like-minded members of the radical-liberal parliamentary group (today's FDP ) and was the first Federal Councilor not to be re-elected in 1854. After that he was twice a general in the French service and tried in vain to re-enter politics on the part of the conservatives.

biography

Education and beginning of political career

Ulrich Ochsenbein was the second of ten children of the Caspar and Magdalena Ochsenbein-Gasser couple. The father ran the Gasthof Bären in the hamlet of Schwarzenegg, including the estate belonging to it, and he also worked as a horse dealer. The family lived in modest prosperity and moved to Marnand in Vaud in 1818 . Ulrich attended French-speaking schools in Granges-près-Marnand and Moudon until he was 14 . In 1825 the family moved to Nidau ​​in the Bernese Seeland . There Ochsenbein quickly caught up with German-language education, attended high school in Biel and then studied law for four years at the Academy in Bern . In 1830 he joined the Zofingia .

After his mother died in 1830 and his father in 1835, Ochsenbein inherited a large mountain of debt. With the help of his siblings, he got the family business back in order within a short time. Also in 1835 he married the doctor's daughter Emilie Sury from Kirchberg . In the same year he and his brother-in-law Eduard Sury opened a law firm in Nidau, which flourished rapidly. As secretary of the Nidau ​​section of the Swiss National Association, Ochsenbein campaigned for a liberal federal state, and as local politician for the abolition of land interest and tithing . After the Züriputsch of 1839 and electoral successes of the Conservatives in the two following years, which he regarded as a serious threat to liberalism, he pushed ahead with his military career. After graduating from the General Staff School in Thun , from 1844 he was a captain in the general staff and adjutant to the future chief of staff, Friedrich Frey-Herosé .

Freischarenzug and Sonderbund War

Ochsenbein (second from right) in the Sonderbund War

The political turmoil between conservatives and liberals, who then ruled the Swiss Confederation, cast a spell over the young man. Ochsenbein quickly rose to become one of the leading figures in the Bernese radicals. He was a militant politician and was at the forefront of the unsuccessful free troop marches of 1844 and 1845 aimed at overthrowing the conservative "Jesuit government" of the canton of Lucerne and replacing it with a liberal one. He personally led the second free movement in March 1845. The enterprise failed miserably (see battle at Malters ), and Ochsenbein was expelled from the general staff. Nevertheless, he gained considerable popularity and a kind of folk hero status in his homeland.

From 1845 Ochsenbein sat in the Grand Council , the Bernese cantonal parliament. After the removal of the previous, moderately liberal government, which had tacitly tolerated the second parade, he worked with Jakob Stämpfli on the new cantonal constitution. After its entry into force, Ochsenbein was elected to the government council in 1846 . He represented his canton at the meetings of the Diet and chaired it from December 1847 to May 1848. In the election of the Commander-in-Chief of the Diet Army, he supported his friend Frey-Herosé, who was defeated by the more conservative Geneva Guillaume Henri Dufour . Instead, Ochsenbein commanded the 5,600-man Bern reserve division as a colonel during the Sonderbund War . This initially had the task of carrying out a mock attack against Freiburg . Then she broke the resistance of the Lucerne troops near Schüpfheim at the end of November 1847 .

President of the Constitutional Commission

Ochsenbein presides over the Diet on October 20, 1847

Following the suppression of the Sonderbund uprising, Ochsenbein played a key role in drafting the federal constitution as President of the Constitutional Commission . After 31 meetings in 51 weeks, the commission managed to transform Switzerland into the only stable democracy in continental Europe for a long time.

Ochsenbein advocated the following innovations in particular: The federal government should be exclusively responsible for political contracts with foreign countries and for official dealings with foreign states, in order to enable Switzerland to act in a unified manner in terms of foreign policy. A federal university was to be founded, the task of which he saw at the scientific and state-political level. Cantonal constitutions should be made binding on equal rights, individual rights of freedom, republican form of government with representative or direct democracy , mandatory constitutional referendum and constitutional initiative by the people. The bicameral system with a national council and a council of states modeled on the United States was intended to create a balance between the supporters of a federation that was as loose as possible with extensive preservation of cantonal sovereignty and the supporters of a centralized, unitary state.

In the canton of Bern, Ochsenbein successfully defended the constitutional proposal against the negative vote of his former comrade in arms Stämpfli, who considered the new constitution to be insufficiently centralized and called for military interventions in favor of the European revolutions - both concerns that Ochsenbein rejected. According to the historian Johannes Dierauer , the federal state established in 1848 proved its worth because it “is not, like the unified Swiss republic , imposed by a foreign side according to an unhistorical doctrine, but rather designed in wise connection to local historical tradition and as a natural goal of a steadily swelling internal one Movement came into being ».

Federal Council

The first seven federal councilors, ox leg with mustache
Ulrich Ochsenbein, bust near Nidau ​​Castle

Ochsenbein took part in the first parliamentary elections in four constituencies in October 1848 . While he was defeated in the Oberland constituency , he was successful in the Mittelland , Emmental and Seeland constituencies . He then decided to represent the Mittelland constituency in the National Council. On November 6, 1848 he was elected the first President of the National Council. Election to the Federal Council followed ten days later . Despite the resistance of the ultra-radicals around Stämpfli, Ochsenbein received 92 of the 132 votes cast in the first ballot and thus achieved the best result of all seven newly elected Federal Councilors (in his election, Charles Neuhaus received 13 votes , Henri Druey 12 and 15 other people). Because of his military experience, it was obvious that he should take over the military department.

Already in his first days in office, Ochsenbein had the legal basis for the creation of the Swiss army drawn up ; at the beginning of January 1849, he put together a commission of experts for this purpose. The federal law on military organization presented in May 1850 , which regulated compulsory military service, training and division of the army, was largely undisputed and was only slightly changed in parliamentary deliberations. It envisaged the increase of the army by a third to 105,000 men and introduced recruit training courses , refresher courses and inspections. The following laws regulated the care of soldiers who had died in an accident, military criminal law as well as clothing and armament.

As a Federal Councilor, Ochsenbein also tried to influence Bernese cantonal politics. After he had succeeded in convincing liberal and moderately radical forces of the federal constitution, he wanted to unite these currents in the Grand Council election in May 1850 to form the "whites" (as opposed to the conservative "blacks"). However, the "whites" did not appear united, especially since the contrast between Ochsenbein and Stämpfli was growing ever greater. So it came about that the better organized conservatives took over the majority in the canton of Bern for four years. Because of this, Ochsenbein was soon considered unreliable by the radicals, the most influential movement in the federal parliament. Since incumbent federal councilors had to face the people's judgment in the form of a compliment election , he ran for the National Council elections in 1851 , but no longer on the side of the radicals, but as a representative of the moderate liberals. Nevertheless, Ochsenbein succeeded in asserting himself. In the subsequent Federal Council renewal elections, he was only confirmed as Federal Council in the election for the seventh and last seat, with 80 votes in the second ballot. The United Federal Assembly then elected him Vice President of the Federal Council.

Since neither radicals nor conservatives achieved a majority in the Bern elections in May 1854, they formed a coalition known as a “fusion”. Ochsenbein had achieved what he wanted with it, but was politically damaged, so that the radicals dropped him. In order to secure another election of compliments, he ran for the National Council elections in 1854 in the constituency of Zealand as a representative of the Conservatives. Although he was clearly defeated, he refused to resign as a Federal Councilor. In the Federal Council elections on December 6, 1854, at which Ochsenbein was not present, the Federal Assembly came to the conclusion that a Bern Federal Council could not be re-elected against the will of the Bernese people. Ochsenbein was thus the first not re-elected Federal Councilor, succeeded by his rival Stämpfli.

Further life

Fountain of the Bellevue estate in the Nidau ​​cemetery
Ochsenbein's grave

From January 1855, Ochsenbein was without income and initially thought of emigrating to the United States. Finally he accepted the offer from Emperor Napoleon III. and joined the French army. Service in foreign armies was not forbidden until 1859, but it damaged his reputation, as he had always fought pay services for foreign powers as the delegate of the daily statutes and federal councilor. He was promoted to Général de brigade by imperial decree and was given command of a Swiss legion in the Crimean War . This was not used, so that he was released again in April 1856.

Ochsenbein returned to Nidau ​​and bought the Bellevue estate, located a little outside the town of Port . In addition to his work as a landowner, he was also the author of non-fiction books and an active member of the Economic Society , for which he wrote various works on agriculture. In the brochure "The Sump of the Jurassic Waters Area" published in 1864, he criticized the correction of the Jurassic waters in Zealand from the then out-of-date perspective of ecological balance . In particular, he warned of floods (which actually occurred later) and the subsidence of the peat floor.

From January to March 1871, during the Franco-Prussian War , Ochsenbein again served in the French army, this time not for the emperor, but for the provisional Third Republic . This appointed him Général de division and entrusted him with the 30,000-strong 24th Army Corps, which was stationed in Bourg-en-Bresse and Lons-le-Saunier . On May 5, 1871, he was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor . From 1878 onwards, Ochsenbein appeared again politically in Switzerland. He joined the conservative Bern People's Party under Ulrich Dürrenmatt , which followed a Christian-conservative course. Despite several candidacies, he did not succeed in being elected to an office. On November 13, 1883, he accidentally killed his wife when a shot came off his hunting rifle. In 1890 he died shortly before his 79th birthday on his estate.

literature

Web links

Commons : Ulrich Ochsenbein  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rolf Holenstein: Ochsenbein - inventor of modern Switzerland. Realtime Verlag, Basel 2009
  2. ↑ a b Holenstein: The Federal Council Lexicon. P. 38.
  3. ↑ Joseph Jung : Life and Work . In: Alfred Escher 1819-1882. The start of modern Switzerland . tape 1 . NZZ Libro , Zurich 2006, ISBN 978-3-03823-236-0 , p. 103 .
  4. ↑ a b c Holenstein: The Federal Council Lexicon. P. 39.
  5. ^ Björn Koch: The Federal Revision (1847/48). Alfred Escher Foundation, 2015, accessed on March 25, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Hanspeter Born, The Forgotten Founding Father . On the biography of Rolf Holenstein, Die Weltwoche, issue 38/09
  7. ^ Johannes Dierauer : History of the Swiss Confederation. Friedrich Andreas Perthes AG, Gotha 1913, 6 volumes.
  8. ^ Erich Gruner : The elections in the Swiss National Council 1848-1919 . tape 3 . Francke Verlag, Bern 1978, ISBN 3-7720-1445-3 , p. 9-25 .
  9. ^ Holenstein: The Federal Council Lexicon. P. 40.
  10. ↑ a b Holenstein: The Federal Council Lexicon. P. 41.
  11. ↑ Hanspeter Born: Ulrich Ochsenbein - Nidauer apprenticeship years. On the biography of Rolf Holenstein. In: Bieler Tagblatt . October 12, 2009.
  12. ^ Holenstein: The Federal Council Lexicon. Pp. 41-42.
  13. ↑ a b Holenstein: The Federal Council Lexicon. P. 42.
predecessor Office successor
- Member of the Swiss Federal Council
1848–1854 		Jakob Stämpfli
personal data
SURNAME Ochsenbein, Ulrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss politician and general
DATE OF BIRTH November 24, 1811
PLACE OF BIRTH Schwarzenegg (municipality of Unterlangenegg )
DATE OF DEATH November 3, 1890
Place of death port